Any kind of 3d pipeline / workflow??

#1 I don't know anything about the maya exporter, perahaps you can explain what problems you're having with it.

As far as "mapping" have you seen constructor? It looks like a decent solotion for .DIFs.

You could use the Stencil Shadows resource if you need better shadows.

#2 Stencil shadows - nice idea, but that's not exactly performance-friendly is it? Couple that with a bunch of non-BSP friendly models and I doubt we're going to achieve very complicated levels before the frame rate crunches to a halt!

Constructor looks great, to be honest ... but it's not ready to buy yet, is it? Of course, my big question for that would be 'can Constructor import models from other packages'??

Thanks :)

PS ... it's just because the Maya exporter only builds DTS files - once we'd recompiled it, in Visual Studio, to work with the latest version of Maya, that is!!

#3 It sounds like you won't be happy with most professional engine tools either, unless they happen to have been made mod friendly with Maya (ala Unreal 2K4 which included a copy of PLE). Nebula 2 might be more up your alley or Unity or Beyond Virtual. Both have a nice workflow for artists, though there are always compromises in terms of the engine particulars you will have to deal with.

But from your attitude, it seems as if you've already made up your mind about both the engine and the indie market, which are both stuck in a derogatory and negative tone in your estimation.

There's no reason that you can't use Nebula 2 and license the Maya toolset as a professional developer.

I use Lightwave with TLK 1.4. It is not the perfect solution, but hardly the horror story you present. I also use 3D World Studio for DIF creation, though Quark is not a bad solution (nor is Radiant).

What type of toolset are you familiar with and what are you looking for? It is obviously nor Toeque from your post. Maybe I can help nudge you in the right difrection. It is probably not UT2k4, either, though it has a nice Maya workflow in conjunction with UnrealEd. But from your negative association with indies, I would assume that licensing a professional engine is in order if an indie engine can't cut it for your project. But a lot of professional engines are rather unfriendly for artists to work with as well. TGE grows out of those roots as well. Some have made great steps forward in that area, though.

I can understand wanting to save money on a lower cost engine as a professional team, but if it does not meet your artist needs, then perhaps you need to look at other alternatives. I'll try to help point out those, if possible. What is your toolset (I am assuming Maya for creation of levels and models currently).

#4 Thanks, David. Essentially all we're looking for is a way of getting levels out of Maya and into Torque. If it really came down to it, we *could* use 3d Studio Max although I'd prefer not to just because our artists specialise in Maya. Further to that, I'd like to be able to export something from a BSP-friendly level building thingy (such as Quark, only tested on humans!) then be able to convert them to torque.

We *did* try out Quark, but ran into some very odd troubles .. it wasn't exactly the most friendly package!

I apologise for sounding derogatory in any of the post. In fact, I'm going to re-read it and tidy it up ... I had no intention of coming across so annoying!!! :)

#5 The only one who i know was working on a maya_to_dif was Akio but i think he has stopped working on it
Sad but true this wood export dif bsp shape's i used the his plug-in had full light support worked well in tge1.3 but 1.4 had glitches and he moved on .http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/27965/10220

#6 So if you want to build a level in maya... do so. Break it up into muliple parts, use some LOD and you shouldn't have issues. I'm not sure what type of game you're making, but i've had no issues with piecing together small DTS objects with simple collision meshes. I even wrote an exporter type script for lightwave to make a MIS file for me. I know someone else on the board made a Maya->MIS exporter to do the same thing. I'll check and see if i can find him.

#7 Thanks for the awesome help so far. Pity about that maya_to_dif exporter not working with 1.4 ... and it looks like theres no download for it :(

We'll just have to break it up into bits and disable shadows, I guess, until we can find a decent solution.

#8 One here but its for maya5 i have one for 7 but like i said there is a blurry texture glitch sad was nice to build the hole level in layers and export it all as one dif or just parts by hideing what you dont wish to export. http://www.inoculousgames.com/development.html